Henali Ramji

Production Log Theories Log

During this week, we learnt new basic media theories that we had to apply to our portfolio and
exam. The 8 different theories that we had to know was; Audience Readings, Representation,
Stereotypes, The Male Gaze, Ideal Self/Partner Binary Opposites and Narrative Structure. The first
theory we learnt about was the Audience Reading Theory. This theory was found by Stuart Hall in
1980. According to Stuart, there are three ways in which audiences can read a media text. The
following three ways are;

Preferred Reading: Audience fully accepts the reading that the producer wanted the
audience to receive.
Negotiated Reading: Audience partly accepts the preferred reading but modifies it in their
own way.
Oppositional Reading: Audience rejects the preferred reading.

The second theory was about 7 different representational concepts. This consisted of; class, gender,
regional identity, age, physical ability/disability, ethnicity and sexuality. In this theory, there were 3
sub-theories that had been found by different theorist. The first one was Stereotypes; this theory
was found by Walter Lippmann in 1922. The second sub theory was The Mal Gaze; this theory was
found by Laura Mulvey in 1975. She argued that women are represented in TV drama to provide
pleasure for men. This was done by the camera shots that had been used in the scene. The third subtheory is Ideal Self/Partner. This theory was found by Carl Rogers in 1959. He believed that people
presented in TV with the form of celebrity or star are represented as aspirational role models.
Another theory that we had learn was the Genre Theory. Glen Creeber had identified 12 different TV
drama genres in 2001. He believed that each media text can be classified into different genres.
Narrative theory was found by both Tzvetan Todorov and Robin Nelson in the 1960s. Todorov
identified three basic structures which were;

Equilibrium: Everything is normal

Disequilibrium: Causes a problem that needs solving
Resolution: Problem is solved

However, Nelson came up with three narrative structures in TV Drama which were;

Open narrative: Narrative continues over a number of episodes

Closed narrative: Different episodes each day
Flexi-narrative: Continued across multiples episodes.

The final theory we learnt was the Binary Opposites theory that was found by Claude Levi-Strauss in
1969. Binary opposites are exact opposites such as dark and light.
During this week, I found it quite hard to remember and understand the different theories as I had
chosen Media for the first time. However, I tried my best to understand each and every theory in
basics so that I knew what I could write in the exam.

Henali Ramji